Wanted: Viable national transportation policy

Last Tuesday, Nigeria initiated moves of having a National Transportation Policy. For 56 years, the sector has operated without one. Is this the coming of the much awaited new dawn for the sector? asked ADEYINKA ADERIBIGBE

How do you drive a national transportation machinery for Nigeria without a policy?

This is the nut Mr Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi has been trying to crack since he became the Minister of Transportation last year. Managing a ministry that has piloted the transportation system for more than five decades without a policy could be frustrating.

At a stakeholders’ workshop of the Road Transport Management and Mass Transit Operators in Nigeria, organised by his ministry in Abuja, Amaechi said it was disheartening not to have a transport policy. The closest the country has always been policy draft.

Amaechi’s concern is that the sector cannot go far without a policy to serve as a compass. The policy will guide states and the centre in tackling transportation challenges.

According to the minister, road transportation is bedevilled by problems. He said the sector also suffers from poor infras-tructure and near-absence of a regulatory framework.

His words: “A number of cities do not have urban road design policies and those that claimed to have, have too many obsolete and inconsistent designs that are at variance with current global realities.”

The minister, expressed delight that the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing (PWH) and its counterparts at the states are improving on road designs.

Amaechi’s worry has, for a long time, been the concern of many stakeholders and logistics experts. To pundits, the absence of a policy is the bane of good and sustainable transportation infrastructure which all the states must subscribe to.

He challenged participants to evolve a workable document that the country would be proud of, urging them to redefine mass transit operations in Nigeria, develop short, medium and long-term policies to address road transport challenges and evolve mechanisms for non-motorised transport systems such as cycling and walking.

Why the policy?

Transportation plays a key role in a nation’s social economic development. A functioning and well integrated transport system would stimulate national development, enhance quality of life, enable seamless movement of goods and people, and facilitate the spatial linkages between separated facilities and social contact and interaction. Good transportation systems also provide access to employment, health, education, alleviate regional inequality and fosters national integration.

A good transportation policy increases access to markets and links local, regional, national and international markets and promotes economic development by increasing access to labour and physical resources, thus facilitating the realisation of a country’s comparative advantages.

The overall efficiency and effectiveness of the transport system is of tremendous benefits for road, air and water modes of transportation and their integration.

The evolution of modern transport system in Nigeria can be categorised into two phases: The colonial and the post-colonial period. While the first, marked the origin of modern transport system, with the three networks developed essentially to meet the exportation of cash crops, such as groundnuts, cocoa, cotton and palm products and the importation of cheap, and mass produced consumption goods.

The transportation systems of this era were planned in the most economic way possible, as typified in sub-standard road with poor sub-base, which later proved inadequate for heavy duty vehicles and poor rail alignments, which grossly hampered train speed and post colonial development.

With the attainment of independence came a re-orientation of goals with transportation becoming one of the instruments of unification of the country and an important tool for social and economic development.

The development of petroleum resources from the 1950s further put increasing demands on the transport system and had significant impact on the nation’s social and economic growth.

Goods and passenger movements in Nigeria were done mainly by road, with the railway and inland waterways playing less important roles. International freight movement is principally by sea while air transportation is the main passenger carrier.

All the transport sub-sectors suffer from the effects of past shortages of resources, and this reflected in inadequate maintenance. In the road transport sub-sector, the lack of road maintenance often necessitates subsequent reconstruction.

The inadequate replacement and the poor maintenance of vehicles, contribute to high social costs of atmospheric pollution, and results in high operating costs. In the case of the railways, the lack of necessary resources to keep tracks, rolling stocks and maintenance facility in reasonable working condition produced a serious deterioration of the railway system. Similar problems affected the inland waterways, resulting in its inability to perform useful functions.

For transport operators, these problems created a feeling of despondency, decline in morale and exacerbated management/employee tension. Feeling of despondency and low morale caused further deterioration and growing problems of the system, creating a vicious circle. Breaking this circle is the overriding immediate objective of the country’s national transport policy.

Though one of the predisposing factors impeding the successes of any policy as contained in the transport policy draft issued by the Federal Government in August 2010, remains the large size of the country, yet according to the document, transportation remains the only means of linking people with opportunities in the various locations across the country.

As lofty as the dream of a packaged transport policy was, it has existed more as a draft than a policy. Such was the frustration of transport experts as they seem to have lost count of the many of such drafts that exist in the Ministry of Transport archives. A former General Manager of the defunct Lagos State Transport Corporation (LSTC) and pioneer Head, Department of Transport Studies, Lagos State University (LASU), Dr Tajudeen Bawa’Allah, who was a member of committee of such drafts since 1974, would simply want Amaechi to constitute another committee to review previous drafts to arrive at one that would suit the current needs of the country.

Bawa’Allah made this observation believing that the nation’s problems have largely remained unchanged over the years. “Take the 1993 draft for instance, the document had said: at present, the Nigerian transport system functions in a crisis situation, and one of the principal causes of this crisis was “the major imbalance between the needs of Nigerian society and economy for adequate transport facilities and the ability of the transport sector to meet such demands,” Bawa Allah said.

Similar sentiment was contained in the 2010 draft document. The imbalance in supply and demand for transport capacity overall, and in the development of the different modes of transport, have in fact, increased over the period since 1993.

This does not mean that during these years no efforts were made to improve and maintain the system and make it function. A significant improvement existed, but overall, the demand for transport services in Nigeria seemed to have exceeded the supply. The Nigerian transport system is still in a very difficult situation that needs urgent remedies.

Changes and improvement are obviously needed. Therefore, the present National Transport Policy strives to attain maximum realism, both in the identification of the problems and in the assessment of the means to rectify them.

The responsibility for planning, developing and maintaining the nation’s transport infrastructure is shared among the three tiers of government. To this end, intra-state roads are the responsibility of state governments, while the local governments are required to cater for intra-urban and rural feeder roads, which account for over 60 per cent of the existing road network.

Conclusion

The Federal Government is responsible for the national highways, which constitute only 17 per cent of the existing road network. In addition, the Federal Government, through its agencies, is also responsible for inland waterways/river ports, sea ports, railways, airports and pipelines.

Furthermore, high-level policies of government in particular, the Vision 20:2020 economic transformation blueprint, seven-point Agenda, NEEDS, Public Private Partnership (PPP) and international commitments such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) all require functional, reliable and effective transport system to, among other things, connect people, places, services, opportunities, etc.

Experts say the reason for the agitation of a national transport policy is because it is the only document that could provide the guidelines for planning, development, co-ordination, management, supervision and regulation of the transport sector. Another reason they said is to help explain government’s decisions and actions in the sector by espousing the goals and principles that guide it. It is also meant to identify existing gaps and short-comings and how to address them, just as it will assist in showing how actions in the different modes are linked in the pursuit of common goals. It will also provide the basis for a system of monitoring and accountability, and ensure consistency in the application of policy principles across all modes and in pursuit of different objectives.

That is why the Emir of Kano, Muhammed Sanusi II, cautioned the Federal Government against selling critical government transportation infrastructure across the country.

According to the Emir, while private sector capital is necessary to close the gap in transportation infrastructure deficit, the government must retain ownership while allowing rooms for private investors to recoup their investments with interests.

He said: “In the wake of inefficiency and lack of sufficient government investments into critical transportation infrastructure like highways, railways, airports and seaports, the government has been considering selling off some of its transports assets to private sector investors.”

According to the Emir: “Critical transportation infrastructure like roads, rails, sea ports, airports must belong to the public, while allowing private investors to recoup their investments. That balance is critical in going into partnerships and negotiations.

“The private sector can build, operate and make profits, but the facility still belongs to government. Government cannot afford to hand over seaports, railways and airports, especially for security reasons. The investors will have to have access to recover their investments, but not total ownership of the infrastructure” he noted.

The Emir asserted that the government must fashion out a transport policy that works for all as transportation is a fundamental human right.

“You can not talk about private investments into transportation without looking at the macro-economic environment and the government policies towards transport. We need to create enabling environment that will attract local and foreign investments. Is there an overarching consensus on that? Is there the right form of tax incentives, the right form of concessions, and the right ease of doing business and so on? If not, you can have these beautiful plans of building these roads, but in the end you will be building castles in the air,” he said.

He highlighted themes that should underline the national transport policy document to include: market-based competition that allows private companies to provide infrastructure and services. Secondly, there should be sustainable way to recover cost of investments and the third is that economic development and linkages and externalities must happen for an efficient transport system to happen. “If you have an efficient public transport sector you don’t need a car, you can save your cash and use it for some other critical needs,” he said.